Immediately she lifted up her voice in a thin, querulous shriek--
"No! d.i.c.k, d.i.c.k--don"t leave me! _d.i.c.k_"--
. . . And then it came--sped from that hovering Hate which hung above--dropping soundlessly, implacable through the utter darkness of the night and crashing into devilish life against a corner of the house.
Followed by a terrible flash and roar--a chaos of unimaginable sound.
It seemed as though the whole world had split into fragments and were rocketing off into s.p.a.ce; and, in quick succession, came the rumble of falling beams and masonry, and the dense dust of disintegrated plaster mingling with the fumes of high explosive.
Sara was conscious of being shot violently across the hall, and then everything went out in illimitable black darkness.
CHAPTER x.x.xVI
"FROM SUDDEN DEATH----"
"Sara! Sara! For G.o.d"s sake, open your eyes!"
The anguished tones pierced through the black curtain which had suddenly cut away the outer world from Sara"s consciousness, and she opened her eyes obediently, to find herself looking straight into Garth"s face bent above her--a sickly white in the yellow glare of the hurricane lamp he was holding.
"Are you hurt?" His voice came again insistently, sharp with hideous fear.
She sat up, breathing rather fast.
"No," she said, as though surprised. "I"m not hurt--not the least bit."
With Garth"s help, she struggled to her feet and stood upright--rather shakily, it is true, but still able to accomplish the feat without much difficulty. She began to laugh weakly--a little helplessly.
"I think--I think I"ve only had my wind knocked out," she said. Then, as gradually the comprehension of events returned to her: "The others?
Who"s hurt? Oh, Garth! Is any one--_killed_?"
"No, no one, thank G.o.d!" He rea.s.sured her hastily. His arm went round her, and for a moment their lips met in a silent pa.s.sion of thanksgiving.
"But you--how did you come here?" she asked, as they drew apart once more. "You . . . weren"t . . . here?"--her brows contracting in a puzzled frown as she endeavoured to recall the incidents immediately preceding the bombing of the house. "We"d--we"d just gone to bed."
"I was dining with the Herricks. The raid began just as I was leaving them, so Judson and I drove straight on here instead of going home."
Sara pressed his hand.
"Bless you, dear!" she whispered quickly. Then, recollection returning more completely: "Tim? Is Tim safe?"
"Tim?"--sharply.
"He was upstairs. Where is Doctor d.i.c.k? Did he--"
"I"m not far off," came Selwyn"s voice, from the mouth of a dark cavity that had once been the study doorway. "Come over here--but step carefully. The floor"s strewn with stuff."
Garth piloted Sara skillfully across the debris that littered the floor, and they joined the group of shadowy figures huddled together in the doorless study.
""Ware my arm!" warned Selwyn, as they approached. "It"s broken, confound it!" He seemed, for the moment, oblivious of the pain.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Selwyn, finding herself physically intact, was keeping up an irritating moaning, interspersed with pettish diatribes against a Government that could be so culpably careless as to permit her to be bombed out of house and home; whilst Jane Crab, who had found and lit a candle, and recklessly stuck it to the table in its own grease, was bluffly endeavouring to console her.
For once Selwyn"s saint-like patience failed him.
"Oh, shut up whining, Minnie!" he exclaimed forcefully. "It would be more to the point if you got down on your knees and said thank you to some one or something instead of grousing like that!"
He turned hurriedly to Garth, who was flashing his lantern hither and thither, locating the damage done.
"Look here," he said. "Young Durward"s upstairs. We must get him down."
"Where does he sleep? One side of the house is staved in."
"He"s not that side, thank Heaven! But the odds are he"s badly hurt.
And, anyway, he"s helpless. I was just going up to carry him down when that d.a.m.ned bomb got us."
Garth swung out into the hall and sent a ringing shout up through the house. An instant later Tim"s answer floated down to them.
"All serene! Can"t move!"
Again Garth sent his voice pealing upwards--
"Hold on! We"ll be with you in a minute."
He turned to Selwyn.
"I"ll go up," he said. "You can"t do anything with that arm of yours."
"I can help," maintained d.i.c.k stoutly.
Garth shook his head.
"No. If you slipped amongst the mess there"ll be up there, I"d have two cripples on my hands instead of one. You stay here and look after the women--and get one of them to fix you up a temporary splint."
The two men moved forward, the women pressing eagerly behind them; then, as the light from Garth"s lantern steamed ahead there came an instantaneous outcry of dismay.
The whole stairway was twisted and askew. It had a ludicrously drunken look, as though it were lolling up against the wall--like a staircase in a picture of which the perspective is all wrong.
"It isn"t safe!" exclaimed Selwyn quickly. "You can"t go up. We shall have to wait till help comes."
"I"m going up--now," said Garth quietly.
"But it isn"t safe, man! Those stairs won"t bear you!"
"They"ll have to"--laconically. "That top story may go at any minute. It would collapse like a pack of cards if another bomb fell near enough for us to feel the concussion. And young Durward would have about as much chance as a rat in a trap."
A silence descended on the little group of anxious people as he finished speaking. The gravity of Tim"s position suddenly revealed itself--and the danger involved by an attempt at rescue.